


shrine of weather, snow in midsummer

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tenki no Ko | Weathering With You Fusion, Childhood Friends, M/M, Memories, Snapshots, Tenderness, Tragedy, Weatherboy Jaemin, thats the best desc for it, well. elements of tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23517871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Donghyuck is the eye of the hurricane. He is a central pull, and Jaemin is caught in his orbit.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Na Jaemin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17
Collections: OBSCURE SORROWS FIC FEST





	shrine of weather, snow in midsummer

**Author's Note:**

> my words (which i hope i have shown well):  
> chrysalism (n.)  
> the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain patterns against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.
> 
> nighthawk (n.)  
> a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night ─ an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future ─ that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish your coffee, passing the time by quietly building a nest.

_“Rose & Silk  
_ _the wine is young  
_ _The brooks still hum  
_ _with melted snow”_

─ cedar sigo, $$$ Expensive Magic $$$

Two fingers tapping against his thigh. A smear of ash over the sun, glowing burn-out and golden. The first howl of the thunder comes. The rain pours from the skies. Donghyuck smiles at him, skin soft, eyes softer.

It is a war for his affections: the storm was the first captivator of his heart, deep rolls of thunder and the crackling pinpoints of lightning, far, far away. The rain drumming against the windows, against his heart, is a familiar pulse. He has always had his storms.

(For as long as he can remember, he has been the wire. The conduit. The cloud that darkens the sky, that lingers near the sun.)

Has always known the electricity sparking in his veins ─ the quiet nights, the quieter days spent searching. Yearning. The live wires running through him. His heart gnaws at the hollows in his chest, between his aching lungs and ribs. Even if the storm is there, the yearning does not abate.

If the storms are his first love, then Donghyuck must be the truest.

* * *

Jaemin wakes, and the first pulse of thunder is the one inside his head.

The noise is loud ─ a sudden rolling, corrugated sheets rattling around his mind. Wavering and shivering as the sound pulsates, moves outwards, onwards. There is a ringing at the base of his skull. Is this storm more aggressive, or does it long for something more? Jaemin can’t tell.

He has never been able to tell, really. Storms turn his mind into a mess of thought and emotion, so heavily entwined that they cannot be separated. He tried, once, to separate them. All he had to show for it was the pounding in the back of his head. Live wires pressed against his veins and a drill behind his eyes.

Donghyuck taps twice on the desk. _Headache?_ He asks ─ wordlessly, because they have never needed words. Feathers tickle against his shoulders, his neck. Jaemin nods, barely, head rattling. The imprint of Donghyuck’s smile lingers behind his eyes, gentle and sweet.

Here is a storm in human skin. Here is a hurricane, and he is treating Jaemin kindly.

Donghyuck is shaking the pill bottle, softly, as if he’s scared that the noise will make it all worse. It doesn’t ─ the rattling is barely there, on the periphery, where Donghyuck has always been the centre.

“One or two?” asks Donghyuck, quiet. The bottle rattles on the desk. The pain in his head is only growing stronger, and Jaemin’s head aches more when he tries to think of an answer. _Two,_ he decides, to the flare of heat behind his eyes. “Two it is,” Donghyuck murmurs.

Water splashes against the sink, somewhere distant and far away. A tiny clatter announces a cup being placed beside him, followed by the soft hiss of dissolving tablets. Jaemin cracks his eyes open, picks up the cup.

“Here, baby,” Donghyuck says against his temple, warm and glowing. Soft kisses trail over the side of his cheek, from eyebrow’s edge to half-moon dimple to curve of lips. Everything about this moment is soft: Donghyuck, pressed up close against him, and Jaemin, moving gentle and slow into him.

This is the calm that comes before the storm. This is the eye of the hurricane, and the odd serenity which lingers within his bones.

“I’m barely younger than you,” Jaemin says drily, and swallows back the water with a gulp.

* * *

Donghyuck has always been a hurricane.

He moves wild and untamed, wild and free, with no chains to tie him back. Nobody has ever been able to control Donghyuck ─ he has always been a free spirit, moving wherever he wants, acting however he likes. Donghyuck has never been tameable; Donghyuck has never been controlled.

He is too-sharp teeth and wicked smiles, sharp with intent. Something deeper, something darker. He is the bruises on Jaemin’s knees and the ash on their sill. He is the quiet moments, where feeling spreads up from bone and balloons up into their darkening rooms. Donghyuck is the shrieking winds and laughter that the hurricane brings ─ dizzying, endless.

When Jaemin and Donghyuck were six, a storm swelled up on the horizon, distant and blooming. Jaemin wanted to stay inside, hear the rattling thunder on the horizon, watch the fronds of lightning spill down from the clouds. He had always been one for admiration, rather than action. Donghyuck had laughed, then.

Had laughed and pulled him out into the rain, skipping through puddles with childish glee. Nobody had ever been able to control Donghyuck, even when he was young. Jaemin has always followed him, through rain and snow and thunder.

Donghyuck is the eye of the hurricane. He is sugar sweet ─ addictive, almost. He is the cool of dusk, and the soft warmth of the rising sun. Donghyuck is change, day in and day out. He is the movement of the sun from the first light of day; he is the chill of winter fading into warmer spring.

Donghyuck is the eye of the hurricane. He is a central pull, and Jaemin is caught in his orbit.

* * *

Jaemin swallows. This storm is cool rain against his forehead, heat and ash gathering underneath his tongue. Pressure builds ─ a quiet sigh, and it falls apart. He opens his eyes.

“Hello,” Donghyuck laughs. There is an amused note to his voice, like a spring day. Warmth and clarity. “Feeling better?”

His nod is soft, barely there; Donghyuck’s fingers skitter over his side, over warm skin and ribs, mapping shoulders and the column of throat, stopping against cheekbones. “Missed you,” he mumbles, leaning close. Closer still, quiet, yearning.

They have always been orbiting each other, haven’t they?

Jaemin leans up, pressing a kiss to Donghyuck’s jaw. Then another, and another, and another, moving up and to his temples. Soft humming lingers in the air, fills the space between them. Beneath his fingers he relaxes, muscles unwinding.

Donghyuck is still beneath him. His breathing is slow and steady; his heartbeat is a slow, regular drumbeat. The rain is lashing against the roof, but not in Jaemin’s skull. His arms are live wires and his heart is beating.

“I love you,” Jaemin whispers against his throat. The words are more than words ─ they are a promise, bright and clear against the dark skies. “I love you,” he repeats, somehow frantic, somehow despairing. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I won’t.” Donghyuck promises. Solemnity and sincerity; he does not know the inevitable. He cannot prevent it, either.

Jaemin has always been there when the storms are. There is no other truth that Donghyuck knows.

* * *

Jaemin was six and Donghyuck was about to turn seven and there was a storm blooming on the horizon. The clouds were shaped like a great plateau of land ─ he hadn’t known the name of it at the time. All he had known was that it was Donghyuck’s birthday, tomorrow, and the land-cloud was going to bring a storm. His eyes had sparked with it.

“I don’t want it to rain tomorrow,” Donghyuck had said, soft and gentle. It was the one time that he had been quiet, as if restricted ─ Jaemin had not seen it before, and has not seen it since. _I don’t want it to rain for Hyuck’s birthday,_ he had told himself then.

The land-cloud had dissipated, far off on the horizon. Jaemin’s veins sparked like live wires, his body awash with energy. He floated far away from his body, and never truly returned. A part of himself had always belonged to the sky.

The cumulonimbus was a beginning.

* * *

The fall into sleep is slow and limitless. He is warm, here, and safe. Donghyuck is cold where he is pressed up against him, like he doesn’t want him to leave. Jaemin has made his decision a long time ago.

_I’m sorry,_ he thinks. Then, _tomorrow it will be sunny again._

“I wanted it to be sunny for your birthday,” Jaemin says, and does not say. This is both a memory and a dream. How Jaemin wanted it to go, and how it did not. “So I told the clouds to go away, and they did.”

The sky is clear and Jaemin’s arms are live wires. Donghyuck ruffles his hair, thanks him wordlessly. They are stuck in orbit, unchanging, ever changing. Contradiction in motion. There is a nimbus in Jaemin’s head and the sky is a live wire running through him.

He is young, but even now, he knows that he would do this all again.

When Donghyuck wakes, the sky outside is sunny, and Na Jaemin is gone. This is only the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed this! this fic was brought about by a very long intimidating process including holly crying in the movie theater, me not crying in the movie theater then crying at home, and loud yelling over That One Scene
> 
> please tell me what you think of this!! also:  
> [twt](https://twitter.com/phantomhwa) | [insp](https://cadenseas.dreamwidth.org/284.html)


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